'No monsieur, no,' replied the aubergiste, trembling.
'Which way did they take her?—towards Commercy?'
'No; towards Nanci.'
I was about to spring on poor Dagobert, but remembered his mutilation, and perceived at once the whole details of the trick which had been played me by the Count de Bitche, on hearing my request concerning the safety of Nicola—a request made so solemnly to Vaudemont before we fought. And so she had been carried away by this brutal and unscrupulous noble, whose forcible abduction of the beautiful Countess of Lutzelstein was so notorious throughout all Germany and France; a crime which was followed by another more terrible; for the corpse of that unfortunate lady, who had been savagely strangled, was left ignominiously stripped in the woods near his castle in Lorraine; and in her hands was found a portion of a velvet pourpoint, which she had clutched in her dying struggles, and which, by its remarkable lacing, was known to have been worn by the Count.
And Nicola was in his power!
'The Count is a sorcerer, Monsieur l'Abbé,' said the aubergiste, imploringly; 'so beware what you do. He is said to attend the sabbat in the forest of St. Michel; he anoints himself with the fat of unbaptized children; he dries up the milk of poor men's cattle, and turns the gold of the rich into birchen chips; and he has an ointment which he puts on his eyes, to enable him to see where treasure is hidden. It was thus he found the gold which Charles VII. buried in his old Rendezvous de Chasse, in the forest of Loches, where it was guarded by a dragon. Beware, M. l'Abbé, beware! or at least do not name me; for I am a poor man, whom he would think no more of hanging than he would of drinking a cup of wine.'
Heedless of all these warnings, on foot I rushed along the road, with my sword drawn; but night had now closed in, and objects had become vague and indistinct. I placed an ear on the ground to listen, but heard only the throbbing of my heart; my whole brain seemed to have become one huge pulse. Nicola, whom I might never see again, seemed before me, with all her thousand winning ways, her beauty and her gentleness, her modesty and timidity—Nicola subjected to the rude advances of this brutal and licentious lord!
My heart grew sick!
It was too much to think of—too exasperating a subject for contemplation; and half-blind with rage and grief. I rushed along the Nanci road, which stretched far away before me, lonely and silent in the light of the rising moon.
Thus Nicola was lost or taken from me; and all the injunctions from the Countess, and my responsive promises, came back to my memory with a glow of shame and mortification, for, by my own neglect, I felt that I had forfeited my honour, and would be disgraced in the estimation of them both for ever. But these reflections were altogether secondary to the horror I experienced at the idea of her being subjected to captivity by such a man as Rudolf de Bitche; and now, when I had lost her, oh! how paltry did all my vile conventional scruples about her humble birth and position seem to me! Poor, beloved girl!